Hasil untuk "Special types of environment"

Federico Bruzzone, Walter Cazzola

Achieving zero-cost specialization remains a fundamental challenge in programming language and compiler design. It often necessitates trade-offs between expressive power and type system soundness, as the interaction between conditional compilation and static dispatch can easily lead to unforeseen coherence violations and increased complexity in the formal model. This paper introduces meta-monomorphizing specializations, a novel framework that achieves specialization by repurposing monomorphization through compile-time metaprogramming. Instead of modifying the host compiler, our approach generates meta-monomorphized traits and implementations that encode specialization constraints directly into the type structure, enabling deterministic, coherent dispatch without overlapping instances. We formalize this method for first-order, predicate-based, and higher-ranked polymorphic specialization, also in presence of lifetime parameters. Our evaluation, based on a Rust implementation using only existing macro facilities, demonstrates that meta-monomorphization enables expressive specialization patterns while maintaining full compatibility with standard optimization pipelines. We show that specialization can be realized as a disciplined metaprogramming layer, offering a practical, language-agnostic path to high-performance abstraction. A comprehensive study of public Rust codebases further validates our approach, revealing numerous workarounds that meta-monomorphization can eliminate, leading to more idiomatic and efficient code. An empirical evaluation on 16 micro-benchmarks confirms that compile-time specialization matches or outperforms runtime TypeId-based dispatch, and demonstrates expressiveness gains on patterns -- such as lifetime-based dispatch, higher-ranked types, compound predicates, and wildcard matching -- that runtime dispatch structurally cannot express.

ZOU Zhengxin, DENG Ruru, LIANG Yeheng et al.

By taking the Feilaixia–Changhu Reservoir area in Guangdong Province, China as an example, the wide field view (WFV) multispectral image data of China's Gaofen-1 (spatial resolution of 16 m) was used, and the remote sensing physical analysis model for water quality (Deng model) based on radiation transfer theory was used to perform remote sensing inversion of the chlorophyll-a concentration in the river-type reservoir. The original image was subjected to a series of image preprocessing steps such as the improved dark-pixel atmospheric correction method for inland water and the water and land separation based on logical discrimination. From the preprocessed water-leaving reflectance result map, three types of single-type special pixels, namely clean water, organically polluted water, and eutrophic water, were selected to first calculate the optical parameters of the water components required by the Deng model. Finally, the remote sensing result map of the chlorophyll-a concentration in the study area was obtained by solving the equation group by combining remote sensing bands. The correlation analysis of the chlorophyll-a remote sensing inversion value and the measured value was performed, and the determination coefficient was R²= 0.835 8; the result verification was reasonable. The chlorophyll-a remote sensing results reveal that there are several places with serious eutrophication in this area at the time of satellite image imaging, mainly distributed in two reservoir centers and one reservoir bay of Feilaixia Reservoir; two river bays of Lianjiang River; one in the upper reaches of Wengjiang River, and one in Yingde City section of the main stream of Beijiang River. It is inferred that it is caused by the discharge of sewage from cage aquaculture and the catering industry to nearby residents. The high-concentration pollution areas in the reservoir center of Feilaixia Reservoir and the main stream are temporary, because the hydrodynamic conditions are formed with the migration of river diffusion; while the pollutants located in the reservoir bay and river bay are gathered into stable pollution areas due to their poor flow conditions, indicating that the Deng model has also achieved good results under dynamic hydrological conditions. Further statistics show that the water area with chlorophyll-a concentration of 0–3 μg/L accounts for 92.05% (56.21 km²), and the pollution area with >3 μg/L accounts for 7.95% (4.85 km²), indicating that the chlorophyll-a concentration in the study area is generally at a low level, and the statistical results are consistent with the laws reflected by the image inversion results. This study not only expands the application of the Deng model in river-type reservoirs but also provides a scientific basis for regional water environment management.

Michel Reitmeier, Marco Seiler

We study the contact process in a dynamical random environment defined on the vertices and edges of a graph. For a broad class of processes, we establish an asymptotic shape theorem for the set H_t, which represents the vertices that have been infected up to time t. More precisely, we show that this asymptotic shape is characterized -- similar to the basic contact process -- by a cone spanned by a convex set U, provided certain growth conditions are satisfied. Notably, we find that the asymptotic shape is independent of the initial configuration of the environment. Furthermore, we verify the growth conditions for various types of random environments, such as the contact process on a dynamical graph or a system with switching vertex states, where the monotonicity of the entire process is not guaranteed.

Zeyu Wang

In this article, we relate the fake special cycle classes $z_{\mathbb{L}_σ,r}$ attached to a Hecke eigensheaf $\mathbb{L}_σ\in\mathrm{Shv}_{\mathrm{Nilp}}(\mathrm{Bun}_G)$ introduced in the author's previous work to the isotypic part of special cycles on Shtukas. As an application, we relate the self-intersection number of the isotypic part of special cycles arising from Rankin--Selberg period to higher derivatives of Rankin--Selberg $L$-functions.

Wenteng XU, Xuexue SUN

Epigenetics refers to heritable changes that do not affect DNA sequences. Compared to genetic changes, epigenetic changes affect gene expression and protein products in cells, and these changes are reversible and dependent on the environment. There are three major types of epigenetic changes: DNA methylation, histone post-translational modifications (PTMs) increase the functional diversity of the proteome through the covalent addition of functional groups or proteins, proteolytic cleavage of regulatory subunits, or degradation of whole proteins), and non-coding Ribonucleic Acid.. This study focused on post-translational histone modifications.There are five main histone types: H1/H5, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4. Genes encoding histones do not contain introns and are among the most conserved proteins in eukaryotes. Histones are basic structural proteins comprising eukaryotic chromosomes. Generally, two molecules, H2A, H2B, H3, and H4 form a histone octamer that combines with DNA to form a structural unit called a nucleosome. This nucleosome appears every 200 bp and is connected by H1 histones to form chromatin.Histone modification refers to the addition of functional groups to histone tails, most commonly lysines. This process regulates gene expression by altering chromatin structure through condensation and depolymerization. Additionally, histone modification creates binding sites for various proteins. Histone modifications reported in animals include methylation, acetylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination, SUMOylation (which is a small ubiquitin-related modifier involved in post-translational modification of proteins), ADP-ribosylation (which is a small ubiquitin-related modifier involved in post-translational modification of proteins), and short-chain lysine acylation.Many studies have shown that chromatin remodeling is a key step in spermatogenesis, involving the transformation of histones to protamines. Briefly, protamine replacement requires (Ⅰ) histone PTMs to promote the opening of histone-based chromatin structures, especially histone hyperacetylation and incorporation into histone variants; (Ⅱ) binding of bromine domain proteins to acetyl residues and remodeling of chromatin; (Ⅲ) formation and repair of DNA strand breaks in chromatin remodeling; and (Ⅳ) incorporation of protamine. Herein, we focused on Process (Ⅰ).In bisexual reproduction, sperm, as a paternal information carrier, is a key factor in a species continuation. Spermatogenesis includes various stages, including spermatogonia, primary and secondary spermatocytes, round sperms, and mature sperms. During round sperm transformation into mature sperm, chromatin remodeling occurs and cell morphology undergoes dramatic changes, in which histone PTMs and variants are essential. Histone PTMs patterns affect gene expression over a wide range, such as methylation, which is mainly related to gene expression activation or inhibition; acetylation, which activates transcriptional activity and participates in histone deposition and DNA repair; phosphorylation, which promotes post-transcriptional modification or participates in DNA double-strand break repair; and ubiquitin, which regulates various protein substrates in different cellular pathways. Histone variants have special functions in regulating chromosome structure. For example, histone H1 variants inhibit transcription during differentiation, histone H2A and H2B variants play a unique role in sperm chromatin packaging, H3.3 is the most important variant of H3, which is expressed in all stages of the cell cycle and participates in chromosome formation outside the S phase, Histone H4 is one of the slowest evolving proteins, and no histone variant has ever been found. Focusing on post-translational histone modifications, this study reviews the latest progress in methylation, acetylation, phosphorylation, and ubiquitination. Subsequently, the histone variants and their functions in chromatin remodeling are summarized. Finally, using Cynoglossus semilaevis as an example, this study briefly introduces the implications of these studies on spermatogenesis in aquatic animals. Elucidating the effect of PTMs on spermatogenesis will aid in exploring the regulatory mechanism of specific sperm (W-type) absence, which expands the fundamental theory of reproductive biology and provides novel solutions to monosex fry cultivation in aquaculture.

Oleh Pylypchuk

The biosphere is usually thought of as the shell of our planet, formed by living matter, literally as a certain "sphere of life." However, for V. I. Vernadsky, who developed the doctrine of the biosphere, it was a geological phenomenon, the part of the earth's crust, that was suitable for the existence of life. He was talking about a certain structure originally formed not by living but by inert matter. Life appeared millions of years later, also thanks to the biosphere. The biosphere not only created the conditions for the existence of life, it gave rise to life itself. The latter arose due to the interaction of planetary and cosmic factors, in particular, the inert matter of the earth's crust and solar energy. And then life in the biosphere developed owing to all the same factors – the material of the inert matter of the biosphere and the energy of the sun's ray, also causing the evolution of the biosphere itself. Living organisms function as active agents that cause and determine the direction of the biosphere evolution. Using its inert matter for their own construction, they thereby change the character of the biosphere. The biomass of living organisms gradually increased due to the transition of atoms of inert matter into living matter. But the life of every living organism is limited in time, and after its end, the substance that made it up completely turned back into the biosphere for further use. This, in Vernadsky's words, "current of atoms" between living and inert matter under the influence of solar energy was the main reason for the evolution of the biosphere. But as a conclusion of his doctrine of the biosphere, Vernadsky suggested that with the appearance of mankind on the planet, a new factor in the evolution of the biosphere arises – mind ("scientific thought"), which accelerates and qualitatively changes the evolutionary processes in the biosphere, gradually turning it into the "sphere of mind" – the noosphere. This assumption of the scientist caused a significant resonance in the scientific and semi-scientific community. Especially recently, there have been a lot of materials devoted to this issue and at the same time to another such "sphere" – the technosphere. But despite the abundance of relevant publications, there are still no defined ideas about these phenomena. Different opinions are expressed, but attempts to generalize and analyze them with consideration of the issue on solid scientific grounds, are hardly ever made. One of such attempts is the peer-reviewed monograph in which the author sought to consider this issue in connection with the peculiarities of society as a kind of biological superorganism on the basis of its scientific and technological progress, which largely determines the interaction of living and inert matter in the biosphere today. Having considered the main provisions of V. I. Vernadsky's concept, as well as a number of current publications on the noosphere and technosphere, the author comes to the conclusion that many of those who seem to consider themselves followers of Vernadsky, have actually departed far from his views. The main content of publications about the noosphere is actually reduced to considering it not as a material phenomenon, but as a kind of "emanation of the mind" that creates this very noosphere. This causes a certain euphoria in these authors in anticipation of the beneficial moral and ethical consequences of its functioning. As for the technosphere, even its composition is not really defined, but despite the recognition of its usefulness, many of the publications are downright imbued with technophobia. As a result, the author considered it necessary to study the current evolution of the biosphere on the basis of its history and to see how society as an active biological organism differs from the previous ones, and what impact these differences have on modern processes in the biosphere. In this regard, he consistently considers the emergence and development of living organisms in the biosphere, their evolution, as a result of which the processes of interaction between living and inert matter change. With the enormous variety of their forms arising as a result of the development of living matter, the main direction of evolution associated with the complication of the structures of living organisms can be clearly traced in this development. From the very beginning, they were separate autotrophic and heterotrophic types of cells. Their interaction with each other led to the formation of colonies of such cells, and then to the formation of an integral multicellular organism with the division of functions first between its constituent cells, and then between the organs. This division was caused by the need to improve the adaptation of a living organism to the environment in which it exists. Its main task is to resist entropy more and more successfully, as all material objects – with the destruction of their structures and the degradation of energy – are susceptible to the growth of entropy in our world. The development of living organisms, on the contrary, presupposes a decrease in their entropy, which can be achieved only by removing its material carrier into the environment and consuming objects with negative entropy from it. According to E. Schrödinger, a living organism remains alive only as long as it receives negative entropy from the environment. And this means the need for a constant material exchange of a living organism with the environment. The very need determines the main direction of the evolution of living organisms. For this purpose, they become more complex, including the formation of their own specialized subsystems designed for the more and more successful implementation of this function. And this presupposes the development of a living organism's ability to successfully perform the necessary actions, on the one hand, and to determine the nature of these actions depending on specific conditions, on the other. In other words, the formation and development of two functional subsystems of the body, one of which is intended for material (material and energy), and the second – for informational interaction with the environment. In a single-celled organism these systems are only outlined in the form of its internal structural components. And in a multicellular organism they already represent groups of specialized cells and then special organs. In fact, for the sake of their development and improvement, the evolution of living organisms takes place. The author of the monograph examines in detail the nature of the ongoing evolutionary changes from this point of view. And first of all, he emphasizes the above-mentioned "general line" on the complication of the structure of organisms. In this direction, after multicellular organisms consisting of an organic group of various cells, the next stage in the evolutionary development of living things was the appearance of a kind of "collective" organism consisting of previously independent separate individuals – a superorganism. Now the idea of "collective" associations of eusocial insects as unified, integral organisms is almost universally accepted. Their appearance basically was revolutionary in nature – precisely as the next stage in the development of living organisms. The division of functions was realized on the level of separate individuals. However, these organisms were not able to change their relationship with the biosphere in the same revolutionary way, particularly because of their size that did not contribute to the development of a powerful informational system. This happened much later on another evolutionary branch, in which the size of multicellular organisms provided the possibility of their development due to the growth of the brain size, which not only ensured the enlargement of hereditary programs of behavior, but also their formation in ontogenesis on the basis of experience. So, the relationship between living organisms and the inert matter of the biosphere has also changed. Many species of animals in interaction with inert matter not only introduced it into their composition as usual (some – autotrophs – directly, others – heterotrophs – indirectly) but also used external material objects (objects of "pre-technology" – from a spider web to a beaver dam) in interaction with the environment. This is potentially a very significant point, although it did not play a particularly important role until the appearance of a new kind of superorganism - human society. Society, like any other biological organism, also forms two functional subsystems – one for informational and the other for material interaction with the environment. But, unlike the superorganisms of eusocial insects (ants, bees, termites, etc.), these are systems, not just an external association of their constituent functioning individuals. First of all, this concerns the information subsystem which, in addition to providing appropriate connections with the environment, also plays the role of a protective, and most importantly, unifying shell for the entire superorganism which is formed and functions due to the interaction of the cerebral structures of the individuals that make up the social organism. In the opinion of the author, the role of connecting elements between informational processes in the brain of each member of society is performed by special material formations – signs, that form sign systems. They provide the transcoding of individual information which is processed by the brain of each individual in internal natural individual codes by means of "external" common codes jointly formed in each individual by society as a whole. The result of the social functioning of such an information system, which significantly exceeds the information of each individual brain in its power, is the appearance of a completely new phenomenon – social consciousness. Exactly this makes society an integral biological organism in which the individual consciousness of each member is a reflection of the social consciousness. Thanks to social consciousness, the nature of the interaction of the entire social organism also changes with its environment. Regarding the reduction of entropy, this interaction is carried out in the form of a special process – the production process. This process begins with social consciousness which forms tasks for individuals on this interaction. It includes the analysis of the environment, the needs of individuals and society as a whole, the possibilities and means for obtaining consumer goods, necessary for the satisfaction of individuals from the environment through their labor, the choice of the object of labor as well as the imperative impulse for individuals to participate in the labor process. This process, just like the formation of social consciousness, is embodied by the same individuals, but in a different capacity. Under the influence of individual consciousness, which has accepted the attitude of social consciousness, individuals perform actions aimed at its realization, that is, the transformation of an object of labor taken from nature into an object of consumption necessary for society with the help of means of production. The latter, being a carrier of negative entropy, enters society to reduce its entropy. As a result, the entropy of society decreases, and the entropy of the consumer increases. Therefore, at a certain point, it ceases to perform its function, and it is removed back into the environment as the waste, increasing meanwhile its entropy. Any other organism carries out a fundamentally similar process. But in relation to society, the author pays special attention to the fact that, in contrast to the metabolism of multicellular animals, additional material objects obtained through the transformation of environmental objects also take part in social "metabolism" – tools of labor and consumer goods (technical devices). Entropy is transferred from the social organism as a whole into the environment by their means. For this purpose, they are functionally and physically included in the composition of the social organism. Namely they, together with individuals in their "creative" function, form the second functional subsystem of society (its "technosphere"). This moment – the introduction of environmental objects into the composition of a biological organism – is of fundamental importance. Prior to this, in order to provide its existence in interaction with the environment, a living organism could use only the possibilities directly inherent in its constituent organic matter. The appearance in its composition of transformed objects of nature, first of all its inert matter, creates conditions for the use of the forces of nature itself that are also "external" to its living matter, opening up new, extremely wide opportunities for the biological organism. These possibilities are now limited only by the resources of nature itself, which fundamentally changes the nature of its interaction with it. The latter circumstance also turned out to be very significant, but its effect became known much later. Accordingly, the first informational subsystem of society, based on social consciousness, is a certain "sphere of mind" of the social organism, i.e. its "noosphere". It includes all the same individuals, but in their intellectual function. Specifically, its material structure consists of the cerebral structures of individuals, which are active agents of the noosphere, since those processes that are commonly called ideal are carried out exactly in them; material sign systems that provide the transcoding of information from the individual into the social (and vice versa), and consequently, the interconnection between the cerebral structures of individuals through their sense organs and effectors, thus creating the integrity and unity of the entire given information system; specialized technical devices contributing to the receiving, processing, keeping and transmission of information; and in a certain sense, all the objects of material culture created by society without exception are in their aspect that represents the objectified in them information, distributed by the cerebral structures of individuals as required. The author draws special attention to the fact that in this case, in addition to their biological elements, environmental objects are also organically introduced into the composition of the organism, removed from the environment and turned into elements of the organism itself. After returning to an environment with increased entropy, they appear to be with high energy expenditures and do not completely respond to regeneration, which leads to a steady reduction in the resources of nature, and consequently in the environment of society existence as a biological organism. At the first stages of the development of society, these losses in the environment were not particularly noticeable, although even then the economic activity of society caused significant damage to the environment. But with its development, losses increased quite rapidly, especially with the evolutionary development of the social organism. Biological evolution did not stop with its emergence. But its object now became not a single multicellular individual, but the entire social organism that took evolutionary changes upon itself. Initially it existed in the form of a primitive tribe with a common noosphere and technosphere, the structure of which was mentioned above. We will only add that the very nature of the interaction of society with the environment as a whole required the appropriate structuring of the noosphere and technosphere so that they would provide the integral nature of society. Therefore, the task of its functional subsystems included two points: providing direct interaction with the environment and ensuring the integrity of society. Accordingly, both the noosphere and the technosphere were structurally and functionally divided into extroverted and introverted components. And as a result of their development (thanks to scientific and technological progress), the growth and division of a primitive tribe are starting, followed by interaction between newly formed social organisms with the formation of new associations, just as before the division with the subsequent unification of unicellular organisms led to the emergence of multicellular organisms. We will not dwell on this here, although the author examines this process and its mechanisms in sufficient detail, showing how the structure and functions of operating subsystems developed in this process. We will only note that as a result of these interconnections, the original integrity of social organisms is lost, they turn into some only partially independent quasi-organisms (such as a state or civilization) with interacting and counteracting private noospheres and technospheres. And this, with regard to the additional expenditure, caused the increasing of environmental resources use, reducing itself due to the withdrawal of resources in order to include them in this aggregate "social organism" (with subsequent transformation into waste). But simultaneously with the disjunctive processes, there are also unifying processes. Despite the significant differences in the noospheres of different social formations, the processes of borrowing and unification are taking place between them. Moreover, there has been for four centuries in the world a forced globalization of one of the civilizations – the western one, which imposes its noosphere on all mankind as the dominant one. However, now social processes in the world are proceeding in such a way that the possibilities of this are gradually decreasing, but there is a possibility of voluntary joint formation of a common noosphere – the "sphere of mind" not of planet Earth, but of united humanity. And consequently, the formation of an integral, but now single social organism again over time. And this gives hope for future changes in the state of the biosphere, which today is very alarming and continues to deteriorate. The depletion of our planet's resources is a growing public concern. There are more and more ideas aimed at possible changes in the situation. Existing ideas include proposals for the organization of sustainable development, limiting consumption, humanization of thinking with increased ethical aspects, the joint "co-evolution" of society and nature, and many others. The author of the monograph considers the proposed solutions to be purely palliative. They may be useful, but they can only postpone the danger, not eliminate it. After all, they can neither stop the scientific and technological progress of mankind, which is directly related to the expansion of consumption of Earth's biosphere the resources, nor increase their quantity. The only effective solution is movement into space with its unlimited resources. Despite all the seeming fantastic nature of such a decision, humanity is quite capable of it. The first step in space exploration has already been taken, although it is still immeasurably far from a real exit even to near space with the transfer to it of the productive activities of mankind with its ever-expanding consumption of resources and the removal of waste. Technically, this can be done on the basis of further scientific and technological progress. But from the societal point of view, only united humanity can solve such a problem. For these reasons, V. I. Vernadsky, touching upon this issue, asserted that "the creation of the noosphere from the biosphere" "requires the manifestation of mankind as a single whole. This is its inevitable prerequisite". The solution of this grandiose task presupposes that the entire human civilization will turn within the boundaries of the Earth into a truly integral social superorganism, which alone can be able to accomplish such a gigantic achievement. The author of the monograph believes that today's social processes in the world lead in this direction and analyzes them in great detail. However, we will not stop to discuss these matters further here, since they would require a very extensive exposition. By the time when a real prospect of going into space is achieved, as a result of scientific and technological progress, and in particular the development of artificial intelligence, all production functions will be transferred to the corresponding technical systems, completely excluding direct human intervention in them, leaving him only the processes that can never and under no circumstances be transferred to technical devices (as "inanimate" ones that do not have their own will to life) – goal-setting and innovation. Now it is difficult to predict with sufficient certainty what the productive labor of a person will look like exactly. The author believes that people's lives will be based on scientific and creative activities as their natural forms. In itself, this activity will become not so much productive labor as a way of life, the main way of satisfying social needs. Thanks to the universal informational interconnections, which, together with people and their individual consciousnesses and the universal technical systems of storage and processing of information, will make up the noosphere of society, in which every person will be able to receive any desired information from it and contribute the information developed by him into the general system, preserving personal authorship. And, as a result of the constant processing of all the information received both from individuals and from outside by the public consciousness, a "public production order" will be formed for production from the noosphere. Bypassing the human, it will directly reach the technosphere as a universal system of interconnected local self-governing technocenoses that produce both consumer goods as well as the means of production. As far as exodus into space is concerned, today we cannot imagine what decisions our distant descendants will make, but in the foreseeable future humanity is unlikely to be in need of populating space on a permanent basis. The extroverted parts of the functional subsystems of the universal social organism will be oriented there for the organization of automated unmanned production. Meanwhile, the natural and artificial objects that fill the earth biosphere will actually enter the introverted parts of these subsystems. The Earth's biosphere will not transform into the noosphere, it will simply coincide with the introverted parts of both the noosphere and the technosphere of society, completely turning from the environment of the existence of the social organism into a cozy common home of all humanity. This will be the last stage of the biosphere evolution. In relation to the limited volume of the review, we have not fully considered the content of the monograph here, including the author's rather detailed argument of his point of view on quite important aspects of the problem. For the same reason, many specific issues related to this topic (for example, regarding the development of artificial intelligence) are omitted. Therefore, we invite those who are interested in the considered above problems to directly find the monograph itself, which is available on the Internet, in particular, on the website of the author lagrif.org.

Vishwanath Sharma Manoharmayum, Doshita Ningombam

Water contaminants are prevalent in various sources and this poses high risks to the environment as well as human health thereby increasing the need for an efficient sustainable water management. Zeolites are a special type of crystalline aluminosilicate minerals that possess rich frameworks of interconnecting channels and cages. They have exceptionally high cation exchange capacities and has drawn much attention as suitable adsorbent material for the elimination of different types of pollutants in water systems. Besides the use in water purification, zeolites are also used environmentally as filters of toxicants and as sources of nutrition to crops. Zeolites have multiple functions in commercial and environmental processes because of their structural and chemical characteristics. They can act as requisite catalysts, adsorbents, and ion exchangers due to the broad applicability in commercial and environmental processes across industries. This review aims at examining the use of zeolites in different water purification processes with the view of explaining the nature/extent of adsorption properties and ion exchange of the material. The effectiveness of various kinds of zeolites, such as clinoptilolite, chabazite, etc is presented with special reference to the removal of heavy metals, ammonia, organic contaminants, and operation of desalination. Furthermore, the review provides an account of the limitations and comparison with other technologies.

Ana Paula Razal Dalvi, Gerusa Gibson, Alberto Novaes Ramos et al.

Among the emerging and reemerging arboviral diseases, Zika, dengue and chikungunya deserve special attention due to their wide geographical distribution and clinical severity. The three arboviruses are transmitted by the same vector and can present similar clinical syndromes, bringing challenges to their identification and register. Demographic characteristics and individual and contextual social factors have been associated with the three arboviral diseases. However, little is known about such associations among adolescents, whose relationships with the social environment are different from those of adult populations, implying potentially different places, types, and degrees of exposure to the vector, particularly in the school context. This study aims to identify sociodemographic and environmental risk factors for the occurrence of Zika, dengue, and chikungunya in a cohort of adolescents from the Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents-ERICA-in the cities of Rio de Janeiro/RJ and Fortaleza/CE, from January 2015 to March 2019. Cases were defined as adolescents with laboratory or clinical-epidemiological diagnosis of Zika, dengue, or chikungunya, notified and registered in the Information System for Notifiable Diseases (SINAN). The cases were identified by linkage between the databases of the ERICA cohort and of SINAN. Multilevel Cox regression was employed to estimate hazard ratios (HR) as measures of association and respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). In comparison with adolescents living in lower socioeconomic conditions, the risk of becoming ill due to any of the three studied arboviral diseases was lower among those living in better socioeconomic conditions (HR = 0.43; 95%CI: 0.19-0.99; p = 0.047) and in the adolescents who attended school in the afternoon period (HR = 0.17; 95%CI: 0.06-0.47; p<0.001). When compared to areas whose Building Infestation Index (BII) for Aedes aegypti was considered satisfactory, a BII in the school region classified as "alert" and "risk" was associated with a higher risk of arboviral diseases (HR = 1.62, 95%CI: 0.98-2.70; p = 0.062; HR = 3.72, 95%CI: 1.27-10.9; p = 0.017, respectively). These findings indicate that living in less favored socioeconomic conditions, attending school in the morning, and having a high BII for Ae. aegypti in school's region can contribute to an increased risk of infection by Zika, dengue, or chikungunya in adolescents. The identification of residential or school areas based on those variables can contribute to the implementation of control measures in population groups and priority locations.

Hatice Cansu Bilgiç, Pınar Demiryürek, Pınar Şafak

Introduction: The study aims to determine whether there are any changes in the perceptions of final year pre-service special education teachers towards students with Multiple Disabilities and Visual Impairment (MDVI) and their education as a result of their teaching practice with these students.Method: The study conducted through semi-structured interviews under qualitative research methods involved four female and two male pre-service teachers who were purposively selected according to the criterion sampling method and who were studying in the Visual Impairments Teaching Programme and continue their teaching practice with MDVI students. The data of the study were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data were collected before and after the teaching practice and analysed using the content analysis method.Findings: In the light of the findings obtained, it is observed that the teaching practice with students with MDVI has a positive impact on the pre-service teachers' perceptions of students with MDVI and their education. After the practice, all participants had positive experiences with students with MDVI. The pre-service teachers have critically examined the physical structure of the school and the classroom after the practice; therefore, in the theme of the educational environment, while initially, two participants found the physical structure of the classroom positive, in the final interview all participants stated that it was not suitable. In the theme of pre-service teacher education, it was expressed that theoretical courses were useful but needed to be supported by practice. Participants stated that teaching practice with students with MDVI was beneficial in terms of gaining experience and that they would be able to work with students with all types of disabilities after graduation.Discussion: This study examines the pre-service teachers’ views towards students with MDVI and their education and shows that they change positively during the year of teaching practice. The pre-service teachers stated that their feelings and views about the educational environment changed positively as they gained experience. Participants emphasised the need to enrich special education curriculum by increasing the focus on practice and experience in course content. In addition, it was noted that in-service training and digital materials could help teachers to provide quality education.

Joe Boninger, Joshua Evan Greene

We prove that a special alternating knot does not decompose as a non-trivial band sum. This restricts concordances from special alternating knots, and we conjecture that special alternating knots are ribbon concordance minimal. We verify our conjecture in many cases. This work is motivated by another conjecture of Owens and the second author, which posits that the set of alternating knots is downward closed under ribbon concordance.

Lifeng Ma, Zidong Wang, Q. Han et al.

J. Gómez-Hernández, L. Álvarez-González, P. García-Teodoro

Abstract Ransomware has become a pandemic nowadays. Although some proposals exist to fight against this increasing type of extortion, most of them are prevention like and rely on the assumption that early detection is not so effective once the victim is infected. This paper presents a novel approach intended not just to early detect ransomware but to completely thwart its action. For that, a set of honeyfiles is deployed around the target environment in order to catch the ransomware. Instead of being normal archives, honeyfiles are FIFO like, so that the ransomware is blocked once it starts reading the file. In addition to frustrate its action, our honeyfile solution is able to automatically launch countermeasures to solve the infection. Moreover, as it does not require previous training or knowledge, the approach allows fighting against unknown, zero-day ransomware related attacks. As a proof of concept, we have developed the approach for Linux platforms. The tool, named R-Locker , shows excellent performance both from the perspective of its accuracy as well as in terms of complexity and resource consumption. In addition, it has no special needs or privileges and does not affect the normal operation of the overall environment.

Iin Purnamasari, Suwarno Widodo, Pipit Mugi Handayani et al.

The purpose of this study is to map the social, economic and environmental potential of the people of Tegalrejo Village and to find the potential that is expected to be a solution to problems in the Tegalrejo environment. The research method used is qualitative with an ethnographic approach. Primary data obtained from the results of in-depth interviews. The secondary data was obtained from filling out questionnaires, Focus Group Discussions/FGDs and documentation studies. Participant observations were also carried out to collect data related to the views of the assisted women on social, economic and environmental arrangements. Meanwhile, the documentation study was used to map the potential of the community in the Tegalrejo environment, Jatijajar village, which is related to social, economic and environmental arrangements. Data analysis was carried out by looking for cultural themes, namely domain analysis, followed by taxonomic analysis, and componential analysis. Furthermore, an analysis of cultural themes that link social, economic and environmental cases in the Tegalrejo area is carried out. The results of the study found that the social potential of the Tegalrejo community was to have a harmonious and peaceful nature, then care for each other, then be compact and never have conflict. There are local values that can be developed for the advancement of the Tegalrejo environment such as mutual cooperation, cultural arts, special foods, and production in the tourism industry. The economic potential that can be developed is the formation of MSMEs with types of processed food and types of stall trading, types of services, types of online trade, types of online trade, MSME Tourism, beauty salons and bridal makeup and general markets. Environmental potential, Tegalrejo can be developed into a rest area and display area for MSME products, a culinary center typical of Tegalrejo, an arts and culture area as well as a parking center for industrial areas and a public center in the Tegalrejo neighborhood.

Håkan Wennerström, Mikael Oliveberg

The chemical potential of water ( $ {\mu}_{{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}} $ ) provides an essential thermodynamic characterization of the environment of living organisms, and it is of equal significance as the temperature. For cells, $ {\mu}_{{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}} $ is conventionally expressed in terms of the osmotic pressure (πosm). We have previously suggested that the main contribution to the intracellular πosm of the bacterium E. coli is from soluble negatively-charged proteins and their counter-ions. Here, we expand on this analysis by examining how evolutionary divergent cell types cope with the challenge of maintaining πosm within viable values. Complex organisms, like mammals, maintain constant internal πosm ≈ 0.285 osmol, matching that of 0.154 M NaCl. For bacteria it appears that optimal growth conditions are found for similar or slightly higher πosm (0.25-0.4 osmol), despite that they represent a much earlier stage in evolution. We argue that this value reflects a general adaptation for optimising metabolic function under crowded intracellular conditions. Environmental πosm that differ from this optimum require therefore special measures, as exemplified with gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. To handle such situations, their membrane encapsulations allow for a compensating turgor pressure that can take both positive and negative values, where positive pressures allow increased frequency of metabolic events through increased intracellular protein concentrations. A remarkable exception to the rule of 0.25-0.4 osmol, is found for halophilic archaea with internal πosm ≈ 15 osmol. The internal organization of these archaea differs in that they utilize a repulsive electrostatic mechanism operating only in the ionic-liquid regime to avoid aggregation, and that they stand out from other organisms by having no turgor pressure.

Guanghui JIANG, Fan LIU, Qigang WANG et al.

Most of the bare karst areas environments with the widest distribution in southern China have peak cluster depression landforms. With high incidence of many environmental problems such as rocky desertification, flood, water shortage, and water pollution, the karst environment there is proved to be very fragile. For the bare karst environment, it has a very developed subterranean river drainage networks, causing most of the water resources to enter the aquifer, and then flow and discharge rapidly through the underground karst conduits. For a long time, as a karst living environment, the lack of water and soil resources have become the main cause of environmental degradation.The introduction of the concept of Low Impact Development (LID) is necessary and timely in the karst peak-cluster depression area, based the rich research and practice in southern China. It is believed to be effective for promoting the utilization of water resources, reducing human disturbance, and covering the other environmental problems, such as rocky desertification and risk of underground river pollution. The LID methods based on the regulation of the epikarst zone and sinkholes are mainly suitable for guiding the development of karst land in dolines and depressions. It is realized by solving the questions of how to plan the land use and to design the rural infrastructure according to the special hydrogeological conditions and epikarst hydrological process. The concept and technology of LID in view of urban facilities will give guidance for the construction of a holistic environmental remediation project in a rural area, including water resources storage, pollutant treatment, and land restoration for rocky desertification. It is very helpful to promote rural revitalization in the remote and fragile ecological environment area of karst rocky mountains. Karst dolines naturally have topographic and hydrogeological conditions that promote rapid rainfall infiltration. Controlled by monsoon climate, the karst environment is characterized by distinct rainy season and dry season. Due to the lack of soil cover, storm water forms various types of runoff on the rocky slope, which flows into the underground river eventually through epikarst zone and sinkholes. The epikarst zone with a high degree of karstification has high hydraulic conductivity and regulation and storage function with a large number of small caves. It is the main water storage space on the slope and forms the epikarst spring. The bottom of the depression is flat with continuous soil cover. The flood is discharged by the sinkhole, but sometimes the groundwater inversely enters the karst depression through the sinkhole, resulting in waterlogging. Karst depressions are widely used as living space and agricultural planting. According to its terrains, development practice and disturbance intensity, the land of karst doline can be divided into three kinds of sensitive areas, and they are, (1) sloping farmland with risk of soil erosion, (2) epikarst springs for drinking water source with risk of pollution, and (3) the sinkholes with risk of contaminant input. The LID model would try to achieve five management goals in the three sensitive areas.(1) The goal of LID in the sloping farmland is to minimize water consumption by crop irrigation and to protect precious and thin soil from erosion, which technically can be achieved by requiring a filtering system such as building terraced fields, interception basin and straw mulching, so as to regulate soil moisture and slope flood runoff. (2) The management goals of the sensitive areas of epikarst springs are the utilization of rainfall-runoff resources and the ensurence of drinking water safety, which technically can be achieved by implementing rainwater harvesting projects and setting up water source protection area. (3) Contaminant interception and absorption facilities, such as buffer zone and sedimentation and filtration ditch, should be built in the sensitive area of sinkhole for achieving the goal of stopping contaminants entering groundwater. The LID model for peak cluster, or “LID based on epikarst”, which is characterized by rainfall -runoff management in the epikarst zone, has been explored and summarized in the karst rocky desertification region of South China. The model requires reserving the water resources in the woodland area at the top of the peak in the process of development planning and utilization of karst depression, for enhancing the recharge by infiltration through epikarst zone. In the intensive utilization of land at the bottom of karst dolines, the buffer zone would be reserved for controlling flood discharge by sinkholes, and a low elevation green belt is set with filled karst grooves for promoting natural infiltration and purification. In the transition zone between “peak” and “doline”, the scope and boundary conditions of water confluence at epikarst spring should be clearly defined, and the boundary of the water source protection zone should be determined. At the same time, it is necessary to increase the utilization of rainwater to supplement the water shortage of ecosystems and living. Although LID model based on epikarst is raised from the rocky desertification control in southern China, it could be possibly extend to the karst areas in other regions such as Southeast Asia, where peak-cluster is also well developed.

Y. Zelenko, M. Bezovska, V. Kuznetsov et al.

Processing of metals by cutting under modern conditions becomes impossible without the use of effective cutting fluids. The main purpose of cutting fluids is cooling, lubrication of the workpiece processing area. Spent emulsion is a special type of wastewater, very dangerous to the environment, as it contains a large number of persistently emulsified petroleum products. The methods using various surfactants were tested for the cutting fluid disposal. The obtained results allowed proposing a general flow diagram of treatment of spent cutting fluids, as well as a block diagram of their purification. After processing the spent cutting fluids according to the proposed diagram, two products were obtained, namely water and sludge. This technology can be used in metalworking shops of railway enterprises, as well as the enterprises of machine-building, metallurgical and other industries where CFeffluents are formed within the wastewater complex. It will provide both an economic result through the reuse of water and will give a significant environmental effect by minimizing the amount of hazardous waste.

Yurdagül ÖZDEMİR

Making two broken ceramic works with siren/harpy depictions in Konya Karatay Madrasah Tile Works Museum known and determining the special status of these artworks among the medieval Anatolian fantastic figures are the subjects of this study. The political, military, social-economic relations that developed between the Byzantine and Anatolian Seljuk States in the period after the Battle of Malazgirt in Anatolia created an environment of cultural and artistic interaction. This situation, with the development of culture of living together has given chance to produce artworks that appeal to common taste, despite the differences in style, in the geography that is dominated by two cultures. A common visual repertoire formed in this way in the course of time has spread the use of similar motifs in the artworks of both cultures. Fantastic creatures such as siren/harpy, sphinx and angels believed to have protective and magical powers are regarded as examples that reflect the elements of artistic interaction. The siren/harpy depictions, which have examples in different types of artwork such as architectural decoration, ceramics and tiles in Byzantine and Anatolian Seljuk art in Anatolia, have been portrayed as fantastic creatures that protect against strong evil in both cultures. Some siren/harpy figures depicted in Byzantine art are evaluated under the influence of Anatolian Seljuk art. This is mostly due to the fact that Greek or Turkish masters working on the production of the works know well the depiction traditions of both cultures. The works with siren/harpy figures, which we have examined in our study, are important as material evidences that carry the Byzantine-Seljuk artistic interaction to the present day, produced by using a common visual repertoire formed in a multicultural geography in Anatolia.

Minqi Jiang, Michael Dennis, Jack Parker-Holder et al.

Deep reinforcement learning (RL) agents may successfully generalize to new settings if trained on an appropriately diverse set of environment and task configurations. Unsupervised Environment Design (UED) is a promising self-supervised RL paradigm, wherein the free parameters of an underspecified environment are automatically adapted during training to the agent's capabilities, leading to the emergence of diverse training environments. Here, we cast Prioritized Level Replay (PLR), an empirically successful but theoretically unmotivated method that selectively samples randomly-generated training levels, as UED. We argue that by curating completely random levels, PLR, too, can generate novel and complex levels for effective training. This insight reveals a natural class of UED methods we call Dual Curriculum Design (DCD). Crucially, DCD includes both PLR and a popular UED algorithm, PAIRED, as special cases and inherits similar theoretical guarantees. This connection allows us to develop novel theory for PLR, providing a version with a robustness guarantee at Nash equilibria. Furthermore, our theory suggests a highly counterintuitive improvement to PLR: by stopping the agent from updating its policy on uncurated levels (training on less data), we can improve the convergence to Nash equilibria. Indeed, our experiments confirm that our new method, PLR$^{\perp}$, obtains better results on a suite of out-of-distribution, zero-shot transfer tasks, in addition to demonstrating that PLR$^{\perp}$ improves the performance of PAIRED, from which it inherited its theoretical framework.

David Urbanik

Let $f : X \to S$ be a family of smooth projective algebraic varieties over a smooth connected quasi-projective base $S$, and let $\mathbb{V} = R^{2k} f_{*} \mathbb{Z}(k)$ be the integral variation of Hodge structure coming from degree $2k$ cohomology it induces. Associated to $\mathbb{V}$ one has the so-called Hodge locus $\textrm{HL}(S) \subset S$, which is a countable union of "special" algebraic subvarieties of $S$ parametrizing those fibres of $\mathbb{V}$ possessing extra Hodge tensors (and so conjecturally, those fibres of $f$ possessing extra algebraic cycles). The special subvarieties belong to a larger class of so-called weakly special subvarieties, which are subvarieties of $S$ maximal for their algebraic monodromy groups. For each positive integer $d$, we give an algorithm to compute the set of all weakly special subvarieties $Z \subset S$ of degree at most $d$ (with the degree taken relative to a choice of projective compactification $S \subset \overline{S}$ and very ample line bundle $\mathcal{L}$ on $\overline{S}$). As a corollary of our algorithm we prove conjectures of Daw-Ren and Daw-Javanpeykar-Kühne on the finiteness of sets of special and weakly special subvarieties of bounded degree.

Dominic Hinde

The Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in his groundbreaking analysis of contemporary ethics, After Virtue:  A Study of Moral Theory, asserted that modernity was devoid of a unified moral system. This observation has  been noted by, among others, the ecophilosopher Arran Gare as a means of dealing with approaches to contemporary  crisis. By characterizing debates about the future as reflexively constructed articulations of modernity, this paper  briefly considers how such a perspective is useful when attempting to communicate questions of development under  contemporary conditions. Using qualitative examples from modern Sweden taken from a larger corpus of research  to speculate on the potential for normative conceptual change, it uses the self-styled enlightened polity as a case study  to discuss how environmental knowledge is instrumentalized in self-consciously modern contexts. MacIntyre’s  insight thus provides a view into the relationship between discourse and practice which recognizes the situated nature  of environmental argumentation over uniform green epistemologies.